Monday, July 30, 2012

In the last few weeks I've decided to try a little quilting. Quilting is something that I've always wanted to try, but have never really found the opportunity to try it, til now.

It started out with my friend asking me if I knew if there was a service that one can bring quilt squares to get assembled. Her idea was that she was going to have her bible study class to decorate squares and to make a quilt for a fellow teacher/friend that is going to have a baby. Since I've been thinking about trying my hand at quilting again and since I had a perfect quilt to make for my sister who will be having a baby soon, I went for it. I went with a simple square checkered pattern and used flannel. I used one piece of flannel for the backing and basically folded it to the front for the binding.

Here's my very first quilt.

Anyway, my friend decided to do an alphabet quilt by attaching the letters using heat and bond adhesive, and doing a blanket stitch with some fray check. She had her students work on the blanket stitch for the letters. They turned out awesome. She gave me all of the fabric and I did the sewing to assemble the squares. The front were squares of flannel with cotton letters attached. The back was fleece, and the binding was flannel. I got to learn how to blind-stitch for the binding. :) Overall, the quilt was pretty fun to make. Here are some pictures:

Some tips that we learned:

1. Youtube really does have everything. :) I found lots of videos on blind stitching there, and my friend found lots of videos on the blanket stitching there. If you want to learn something, check there first.

2. Wash and iron your flannel before you cut and sew anything that will have to be washed. Apparently, flannel shrinks quite a bit. If you're gonna make quilt squares, you don't want them to change size unexpectedly in a wash.

3. Use those Joann's coupons because they can save you quite a bit.

Next thing I want to try??? Rag quilting. Who doesn't love a blanket that gets softer as it ages and gets washed. :)